USA is 91 years older (Note: Canada was not
fully self-governing until December 11, 1931).

Representatives of Government (Legislative)1

House Members: 308

Senators: 105------------------------ Total per 1 mill pop: 12.6

House Members: 435

Senators: 100------------------------ Total per 1 mill pop: 1.8

USA has 122 more representatives. Canada has
7 times more representatives per capita.

Nobel Prize Laureates15

16

240

USA has 15 times more Nobel Laureates.

Awarded by committee in recognition of significant
achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and
peace. Note: Only native-born laureates counted toward country
total, so USA total does not include 10 Canadians who did
their work primarily in the USA, as well as other (76)
foreign-born laureates.

Retirement Age2

65 years

66 years

USA has a 1 year higher retirement age in order to
receive old age pension.

Patents per 100,000 population (2008)2

7.58

13.77

USA has 45% more patents per capita.

Geography, Resources & Environment: Canada and the
United States are both very large nations, making up the vast
majority of the North American continent. Canada has a slightly
larger territory, and the USA has slightly more land. On a
physical map, the two countries appear to be on an equal footing,
but in reality, much of Canada is unsuitable for normal living
conditions due to the very cold climate. This has resulted in the
majority of Canada's population living along a long strip of land
straddling the US border (See Canada population distribution map). Even
so, the large geography of Canada does contain a great many
natural resources, including one of the world's largest fresh
water supplies, vast amounts of natural gas, oil and hydro power.
Although not counted as a renewable fresh water resource, Canada
and the USA share the the Great Lakes, which contain nearly 6
quadrillion gallons of water.16 Combined, Canada and
the USA would make the largest nation on Earth with the largest
amount of fresh water supply.

Demographics: If people are any measure of a nation's
power, the largest advantage the USA has over Canada is its much
larger population. The USA and Canadian growth rates are fairly
comparable, but, on paper at least, the way they are growing is
slightly different. Statistically, the USA relies less on
immigration than Canada, and thus has a larger internal growth
rate. Of course, one must consider the uncounted number of
illegal migrants, which some estimate number as much as 20
million, a majority of which come from Latin America17.
Due to the fact that Canada does not share borders with less
developed nations, illegal immigration is much less of a problem.

The US Census Bureau and Statistics Canada classify ethnic groups
differently, and therefore a true comparison between the two is
difficult. However, Statistics Canada does record "Visible Minorities" so some inferences
can be made. The USA statistic above was calculated by looking at
"one race only" results and ignoring all races which
could not be assigned to either White, Black, Asian or Native
American. Original data can be viewed from this link. The Canadian statistic above was
calculated by classifying all Blacks as "Black", all
South Asian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Southeast Asian, and
Filipinos as "Asian", all Aboriginals as
"Native", and all others as "White". We can
see according to this estimate that Canada has slightly more
Whites, one sixth as many Blacks, over two times as many Asians,
and over three times as many Native Americans, proportionally.

Linguistically, an easier comparison can be made, and it
should be no surprise that Canada has many more French speakers,
and the USA many more Spanish speakers. While Canada is
officially a bilingual country, and the USA has no official
language, in reality they are both dominated by the English
language. Canada has a smaller English majority largely due to
the French-speaking province of Quebec; a heavily Catholic
province. The USA has a much larger Spanish-speaking population
due to its proximity to Latin America, and control of former
Spanish colonies.

After looking at all the data, there are noticeable differences
between the two countries in terms of: ethnicity, language and
religious affiliation. However, in all cases the differences
become much smaller when compared regionally. For example,
Washington State's ethnic population makeup is as follows: White
81.8%, Asian 5.5%, Black 3.2%, and Native 1.6%.5 By
and large, northern states, like their Canadian provincial
counterparts, tend to have less Black people and more Native
Americans. Canadian national figures for language and religion
are skewed by the large Catholic presence in Quebec, but on the
whole the areas that surround Quebec are much more Catholic than
the rest of the United States, and even more French. For example,
USA Today estimates that New York and Vermont have a 38% Catholic
population; Massachusetts with 51%, while states like South
Carolina, Oklahoma and Utah only have a 6 or 7% Catholic
population.18 Likewise, the US Census Bureau reports
that 41% of all ethnic French-Canadians in the USA live in the
Northeast, nearest to Quebec, though it is difficult to know how
many of them speak French at home, as such information is not
recorded on the state level. Spanish speaking is a subject the US
Census bureau reports, and with that we find that, once again,
northern states rank much lower. Washington, North Dakota,
Michigan and Maine have the following numbers of Spanish speakers
respectfully: 7.3%, 1.4%, 2.9% and 0.9%; Still all higher than
the Canadian average, but, excepting Washington, much closer to
Canadian norms.

Health: Canada has long boasted a higher life expectancy,
lower infant mortality rate and much smaller obese population,
despite spending less on health care as % of GDP. The USA also
has a slightly higher alcohol consumption rate, which could be
accounted for by the lower cost of alcohol; however, tobacco is
also cheaper in the USA, but roughly the same amount use it in
either country.

One area the USA dwarfs Canada is its much higher
availability of expensive procedures such as MRI machines, which
tends to have a long waiting list in Canada. While not listed, CT
machines and other expensive machineries have comparably large
differences between the two countries. The aforementioned
exemplifies perhaps one of the largest dissimilarities between
Canada and the USA; that being the national health policies.
While the USA can vaunt an abundance of advanced technologies,
drug research and cutting-edge procedures, Canada's national
health policy is clearly more egalitarian. Canada may not provide
the absolute best care possible, like the USA, but it does
deliver quality health care to all citizens irregardless of
income. Benefits and drawbacks can be found in both systems,
particularly to very high and very low income earners. Both US
and Canadian media tend to provide egregious examples of those
shortcomings whenever they arise.

Education: Education is a difficult area to compare, as
there are few international standards to compare in a fair
manner. The two best known to gauge education are: Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA), and Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). However,
only PISA has both the USA and Canada in the list of countries
they evaluate. Strangely, TIMSS uses different provinces of
Canada, but doesn't evaluate the entire country. Overall, the USA
fairs much better using TIMSS over PISA when compared against
other countries, and Canada surpasses the USA under every measure
using PISA. Comparing state against province, the two states
(Minnesota & Massachusetts) achieve much higher scores than all
provinces evaluated (British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario & Quebec)
in both math and science, but this is not a very good measure for
comparing the two countries as a whole, as those two states are
generally among the highest achieving. One last bit of
interesting data is that despite the higher amount of government
subsidized education in Canada, the USA has almost a 5% greater
graduation rate. This can be attributed to the much higher amount
of private bursaries and scholarships that can be found in the
USA compared with Canada.

Crime: There is no denying that the USA has more crime.
The only two areas that Canada is more dangerous is in terms of
robberies and perception of corruption. The two most striking
statistics are the much higher murder rate (2.8 times) and much
higher prison population (6.6 times) in the USA. Both Canada and
the USA have reduced crime rates over the past 30 years, and the
gap between the two is now much smaller than in the past, but
even with much harsher sentencing and larger prison population,
the USA continues to be a less safe place to live.

Again, geography plays a very important role, and when comparing
murder, the easiest statistic to compare directly, we find that
Quebec, Ontario, the Atlantic provinces, the New England states,
Hawaii, and the Upper Midwest states all have very low murder
rates; Western Canada, the Mid-Atlantic and Central states have
moderate murder rates; and that the Northern Territories, Alaska,
Southern and Western states generally have high murder rates.
See: North American Murder Map.

Economy and Government Spending: It is well known that the
USA has had the strongest economy in the world since the post
WWII era. Comparatively, the USA has more than double the GDP of
the second highest ranked country, China, which is just over 5.8
trillion.19 However, the statistic that really shows
how well a country is doing comparative to their population is
the GDP per capita figure. In this category, both Canada and the
USA are listed in the top ten countries of the world, with Canada
slightly edging the USA for the first time in the modern era this
year. Canada is projected to grow faster over a one-year period,
while the USA has a slightly better ten-year growth rate level.
In make-up of the economy, the two countries are nearly
identical, but Canada can boast a better industrial growth rate.
Unemployment and public debt are two other figures that have
always proven to be lower in the USA, until this year; like with
the historically anomalous GDP per capita figure, these numbers
changed for the first time in 50 years after the late 2000s
recession. Despite the more sour figures for the USA in 2011,
personal disposable income still remains much higher compared to
Canadian levels, and the US dollar, the world's reserve currency,
still remains higher than the Canadian one on average.

Until recently, market size has always insured that the USA
had better figures than Canada, and if history is any measure,
this will play an important role in the future. Interestingly, if
the European Union is counted as a nation, it would have a larger
GDP than the United States, but Canada and the United States
combined would make the world's largest economy together.

While historically Canadians have always had a much larger
government per capita, in today's reality, Canada only spends
1.5% more as a % of GDP than the USA. In fact, the USA spends
more on the military, research and development, social security,
education, and health care. While this may seem impossible,
knowing that Canada and the USA spend roughly the same overall,
not all categories are accurately comparable or even listed by
the OECD or others. For example, while the USA spends more on
social security, the single largest expenditure Canada has is its
social services, which are roughly 10% higher as % of GDP than
the comparable US figure. Canada also sends a great deal of money
to the provinces in the form of transfer payments, which also
skews the interpretation of the data.

Infrastructure & Communication: Notwithstanding southern
Ontario, if an individual were to travel by car from Canada to
the USA, a noticeable difference is the interstate system that
stretches from the most urban to rural populations of the United
States of America. While Quebec and Ontario have similar
provincial highway systems, they largely end where the population
does. In Manitoba, it is not unusual for the only major highway
leading south to be flooded for a month of the year, but open on
the US side; for there to be vast sections of the only highway in
a province to be undivided; or to drive for hundreds of miles on
the Canadian side without seeing an overpass, while on the US
side seeing dozens over nearly the same geography and population
density. Even so, on a per capita basis Canada certainly has more
total roadways, railway and merchant marine, and only trails in
the category of airports and telephones.

International Indices & Ratings: There are many different
organizations that compare countries, and only a few of the most
famous or interesting ones are listed here.

The Big Mac Index is a somewhat comical but also
interesting and simplistic way to compare nations around the
world. It is in essence comparing the value of a McDonalds Big
Mac in countries around the world. By this measure, an American
has an almost 20% better purchasing power than a Canadian.

Like the Big Mac Index, the Democracy and Global Peace
Indices were also created by the Economist. Unlike some of the
other indices listed, they are largely constructed by experts
rather than hard numbers alone. In both categories, the USA ranks
poorly, especially so when it comes to the Global Peace Index.
These and other indices like them are highly criticized by many
organizations, but do offer a wealth of interesting information,
even if the rankings don't indicate how great the nation is. For
example, considering that Canada joined World War I and World War
II before the USA, would that mean it is a lesser nation since it
would surely rank much lower on the Global Peace Index if it
existed at that time?

IMD uses a variety of statistics attempting to find the
most competitive nations by analyzing four major factors
(economy, government, business and infrastructure), and twenty
sub-factors. The USA has long held its #1 position.

Freedom House ratings are entirely analytically derived,
but use many examples to justify their scores. The two major
ratings are for general freedom of the country and freedom of the
press. The former simply categorizes countries into: Free,
Partially Free, or Not Free. As can be expected, both Canada and
the USA come out as "Free", but surprisingly, neither
list within the top ten for the freedom of the press rating. It
is worth noting that all the Scandinavian countries rank very
high, despite the fact that they all have a large amount of
government control in the media, and despite the fact that libel
and defamation are much more of a concern in these countries.

The United Nations Human Development Index is perhaps the
most famous index, and rates a country based on its income,
health and education. Until the formula was slightly modified in
2010, this was a statistic that often put Canada above the USA,
and in the 1990s when Canada scored first year after year, was
touted by Prime Minister Chretien as proof that Canada was the
"best country in the world". Unmentioned, now or
before, is that the statistical difference between any first
world country listed in the HDI is negligible, and as has been
shown with the 2010 revision, can easily change the ranking with
a slight modification of the equation.